


Whatever Comes to Pass

by auselysium



Series: Pocket Pass [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017), Call Me by Your Name - André Aciman
Genre: Fluff, Fluff to the max, M/M, proposal fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-30 05:05:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18308765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/auselysium/pseuds/auselysium
Summary: Oliver proposes to Elio down on the rocks of B. at Prof. Perlman's retirement party continues up at the villa.Sequel to Pocket Pass. College AU.





	Whatever Comes to Pass

**Author's Note:**

> The oft requested proposal scene talked about at the end of Pocket Pass!

It’s the trimness of Elio’s waist that always seemed to draw his eye.

Now Oliver, his body has changed remarkably over the years. Aside from the scar on his knee, he’s broader, heftier. He’s not playing against college boys anymore, but professional men and his trainers had insisted he bulk up. They probably would have liked it if he could have grown a few more inches vertically, too but they’ve settled for the muscles.

But that arc at the small of Elio’s back is just as willowy small as the first time Oliver saw him in Rome: body on full display, sweats slung low, ready for whatever the night entailed.

Elio stretches, hands clasped over head. His feet - shoes and socks having been discarded on the grass as they made their way to beach- are spread far apart like an opening yoga pose. He stands just close enough to the water’s edge that every so often a waves bubbles over his toes, catching the hem of his pants with in salty lick.

The sky around them is transitional - night and day all at once. The sun had set behind the horizon where sky meets sea, but enough light remains that the moon and stars, moving in parallel accord, cannot take over with their glow. Everything feels soft, including Oliver's mood.

He makes his way carefully across the beach, avoiding the sharpest grey shale, and slips an arm around that treasured waist.

“Thank you for today,” Elio says, as his arms find Oliver’s shoulders. He kisses Oliver sweetly. His father’s retirement party had taken months of planning and scheming and Elio can finally relax now that it has been such a wonderful success.

“For what? This party was all your idea.”

Elio shoves him away with playful insistence. “For being game for it. For all your help getting this place ready,” he lifts his chin up the hill towards the villa. “For just, being here, period.”

“Where else would have been?”

“I don’t know,” Elio reaches down and picks up a rock. It’s flat and smooth, perfect for skipping if only the waves were less aggressive in their evening tide. He cleans it with his thumb before tossing it into the water. It lands with a satisfying plunk. “Pre-season training or filming another ad for PowerAde or…”

“...Or touring Asia or recording another CD in Phoenix.”

Elio snickers as if to say, _Touché_

“It’s a crazy life, isn’t it?”

Elio looks to him, face gone as placid as the soft breeze that pushes his hair back from his eyes. “It is. Still wouldn’t change it for anything.”

Oliver smiles, his heart jumps. If Elio only knew how much those words bolstered his confidence in what he was about to do.

Oliver reaches down for a rock, too. “You ever think about what would have happened?”

“When, exactly?” Elio asks, seeking clarification to Oliver’s vague musings. He watches as Oliver cocks his pebble over his shoulder, using his non-throwing arm just for fun. That small bit of stone still sails past where they can see.

“If I hadn’t gotten injured. If you hadn’t made Marzia drive you all through the night to be by my side when I woke up,” he teases but Elio remains quite somber, pained to be reminded of that moment in their timeline.

“I still would have done whatever it took to get you back. I’d been trying to figure out for weeks how I could. It probably would have taken a lot longer. Required a lot more groveling.”

“Oh, I remember _plenty_ of groveling.”

“Shut up,” Elio says, finally relinquishing a smile and small laugh. He nudges Oliver’s shoulder with his and Oliver returns his look in kind.

“Do you remember that night on the field?”

“‘Course I do. _Unfortunately_.”

“Remember when I basically asked you if you ever thought about us getting married one day?”

“And remember how I basically said ‘yes’?”

“Yeah, about that…”

Oliver had managed to slip the ring box from his coat pocket to the back pocket of his trousers earlier, while Elio had been dealing with his shoes. He pulls it smoothly out, now, the fine leather of the box supple in his hands. He sinks to one knee.

“Oliver, what are you... “ Oliver opens the box, revealing two rings, nestled in purple velvet. Once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat.

Elio lets out a stunned exhale. Whispers, “Are you serious right now?”

“Elio Liam Immanuel…”

“Wait, stop. Please, I...”

Oliver swallows deep, his heart rate reduced to a slow, but adrenaline fueled, thud in his chest. The moon, now high in her orbit, catches the tears already gathering in Elio’s eyes. He’s not sure what’s Elio’s doing by interrupting his proposal but it doesn’t feel catastrophic. Not yet.

“Look, I’m sure you have some incredibly eloquent, romantic speech prepared and it’s going to leave me in floods of tears and unable to say anything besides the answer you know I’m going to give you so just let me...”

It’s nothing but affection in Oliver’s veins now as he watches Elio search the sky for a moment, lips pressed to contain a sob. He steps back towards Oliver, who lets the ring box come to rest on top of his knee.

“I met you at a time in my life when I _hated_ myself,” Elio starts. “I hated what I’d done. The lies I’d told. The opportunities I’d squandered. The person I felt myself becoming. And then there you were, this gorgeous American standing in that stupid apartment, drinking my beer, coming into my bed. I felt lucky just for that night with you, Oliver. But then there you again. Impossibly, sitting across from me in a class on a campus where I didn’t even want to be. And you,” Elio gestures at him with a faltered breath. “You were so good. And you were smart and strong and talented and brave and _kind_. And I found myself thinking, if a guy like you could like a guy like me,” A single tear falls down his cheek as he shrugs, meekly. “I couldn’t be all that bad, could I?”

  
Oliver’s throat becomes tight with tears, wanting nothing more than to take Elio in his arms and prove to him his worth, then and now, but Elio continues.

“Knowing you, you’re probably going to talk about how meeting me changed your life and how you wouldn’t be the man you are today if you hadn’t met me. But the truth is, I wouldn’t be the man I am today without you, either. You changed everything, Oliver. I'm kinder and stronger and definitely braver. I’m better with you and I’m proud of everything that we’ve fought for, and what we'll continue to fight for, together.”

Oliver has to look away, tears warm on his face.

“Ok,” Elio sniffles. “You can say your thing now.”

Oliver looks up at Elio, so elegant and powerful where he stands, even as he wipes, indelicately, at his nose.

“I was just going to ask you the question.”

“Well, do that then,” Elio laughs.

Oliver lifts the rings back up, beaming, as he asks, “Will you marry me?”

“Fuck, yes,” Elio says before dropping to both his knees to he can capture Oliver’s face in both his hands and cover his lips in a kiss.

They both laugh, nervous and giddy, as Oliver picks Elio’s ring out of the box and slips it onto his left ring finger with trembling hands. It wasn’t that he was worried Elio would say ‘no’ and is suddenly flooded with relief, there is just so much feeling coursing through him that he can’t control himself. The delicate band, thin enough so that Elio can still wear it when he plays, but crafted from platinum and embedded with the a line of the finest cut diamonds, fits him perfectly.

“Let me,” Elio says, picking the box up from the pebbled beach floor and placing Oliver’s much wider but matching band on his hand.

Eventually, cheeks hurting from non-stop smiles, they make their way back up the hill towards the house, carrying their shoes in their right hands so they can occasionally look down and watch the moonlight glint off the clear gemstones.

A small group of hearty party goers - Samuel, Jeanette, her kids (heads in their phones), locals who have known the Perlman family for decades and some of their closest friends from NU - sit around a table on the far patio under a canopy of twinkling lights. Without needing to say it, Elio and Oliver meander away from the crowd, keeping to the dark. They’ll share the news with Elio’s family soon but not quite yet. It feels special to keep this their own secret for just a little while longer.

“You want to have it here?” Oliver asks as they move through the arbor. His fingers trail gently over the leaves, still spring tender on the branch.

“What if…” Elio stops, the thought forming in Elio’s head and across his face as he says it. “What if we had it back in Chicago? At the top of the John Hancock building?”

Cost will be of no concern and Oliver knows that’s perfect venue the moment Elio says it.

“That's the night I knew, after all,” Elio says, bashful.

“Knew that you loved me?”

Elio’s face morphs, becoming something far more quixotic. “Knew that I definitely didn’t want you to marry a girl.”

Oliver steps back towards him. He links their fingers together, kisses the mound of his knuckles then presses their joined hands to his chest. “Well, you definitely don’t need to worry about that now, do you?”

Oliver tilts his head so their foreheads touch.

“Rings or not,” Elio breathes into the space between them. “You’re already my family, Oliver. You have been for years. You know that right?”

Oliver thinks of his close relationship with Samuel. The way he gets along so well with Jeanette and her kids. The holidays they’ve spent with his parents. The vacation they took with Des and his new wife last summer. He remembers the day of the press conference where he had seen their worlds merging and how thankful he’d felt.

“I do.”

They both grin at Oliver’s accidental word choice.

“Come on,” Elio says, tugging their joined hands in the direction of the table. “Let’s see you make another Perlman cry today.”

Oliver follows him, knowing those will be happy tears too.

**Author's Note:**

> This was entirely too much fun to write. Though, it was very difficult not to call them Liam and Zach.
> 
> If you didn't already know, PP has been scrubbed and I'm now in the querying process to try and get an agent or get it published. Feel free to follow me on tumblr @ingrid.sterling or on twitter @ing.sterl24 if you'd like to hear updates about how it's going!!


End file.
